


Even Atlas Fails

by linaerys



Category: Heroes - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-02-21
Updated: 2007-02-21
Packaged: 2017-10-21 07:57:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/222805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/linaerys/pseuds/linaerys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Surrounding the events of "Six Months Ago," Nathan cleans up family messes and starts his political career.  This is a lot more porny and self-indulgent than <a href="http://linaerys.livejournal.com/480530.html?#cutid1">Your Young Men Shall See Visions</a>, although there is still some plot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Even Atlas Fails

“Well, he succeeded this time,” says Mrs. Petrelli as soon as Nathan answers the phone. Nathan rubs his forehead. He doesn’t have to ask what this means—in a lifetime of dodging his father’s mistakes and missteps, he has a final one to clean up. “Come to the house.”

“I’ll be there in an hour,” he says, although she has already hung up, confident, too confident, that Nathan will do what she wants.

He puts in a call to the funeral home their family always uses—Marconi Brothers, people who can be depended upon for perfect discretion. He calls Lieutenant Davidson in Larchmont, who owes him a favor, and tells him to be at the house in two hours.

“My father killed himself,” he tells Davidson, once pleasantries have been exchanged, questions asked after Heidi’s recovery. “I need complete secrecy on this. The papers are going to hear it was a heart attack, not this. Understand?”

A hundred years ago, one of Nathan’s forefathers would have been getting that call instead—and a Petrelli would never have spoken with the police. The Petrellis made their name and their money not by controlling the crime but by cleaning up after it, sweeping the blood and bullets into the gutter, spreading out the consequences, washing it all away. Law had seemed like a perfect next step for Nathan’s grandfather, who then swept away the dirt with words and veils of secrecy rather than mops and bleach.

But they work with the police now, when the situation requires it, and they don’t need any kind of investigation into this.

He drives up to the house. The weather is warm and sunny, a late spring day that would feel like summer except the slight chill in the morning air. He avoids the highways, for reasons he can’t explain, taking the Willetts Avenue Bridge into the Bronx, and then winding his way through poor and ugly neighborhoods until the factories finally give way to green parks and tiny town centers, cut through by small creeks.

“You’re late,” says his mother when she answers the door. “I sent Francine away.”

Nathan kisses her on the cheek. She looks as detached as he feels—they can mourn for Mr. Petrelli later; right now he is a mess for them to clean up, as always.

“Francine found the body?” Nathan asks. “How do you plan to keep her quiet?”

“Don’t worry about that,” says Mrs. Petrelli, and Nathan knows better than to ask. Mrs. Petrelli’s methods can be every bit as brutal as their ancestors’ had been.

“Lieutenant Davidson is coming soon with his pet coroner. They’ll declare it accidental and make the file confidential. Then the Marconis are sending someone. This will be cleaned up before noon. The funeral will be on Sunday.”

“Well,” says Mrs. Petrelli, with an odd sashay to her walk, a strange coquettishness. “I guess you’ve thought of everything.”

“That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”

She pats his cheek. “Yes, it is, perfect. Remember, don’t tell Peter.”

Nathan rolls his eyes. “Of course not.” Peter has to hear the same fiction as everyone else. Peter doesn’t need any more secrets to keep. “Where is he?”

“Out on the flagstone walk. I’ll wait here.” She crosses her arms over her waist; now she looks lost, and Nathan feels a pang of sympathy. No matter all the cheating, the lying, the years when Nathan never saw them speak to one another, they were still companions for so long, this must feel like losing a limb to her.

Nathan doesn’t want to see his father, but he has to, before the police come, to see if there is anything incriminating around or on the body. His father had fallen off the balcony of his study, and broken his neck. His head is turned at an unnatural angle, and his skin is an ashy gray, but aside from that, with makeup and whatever other magic the morticians would work, they could have an open casket, as tradition demands.

It’s ghoulish, of course, and harkens back to history the family should be moving away from, but it isn’t a tradition Nathan is likely to be able to change.

He waits with his mother through the police visit, the Marconi boys’ arrival from the funeral home to take the body.

“I need the key to Dad’s study, Mom,” says Nathan after all the officials leave, and it’s just he and his mother again, in the cool, silent house.

“I don’t think so, Nathan. I know what you’re doing, even if your father doesn’t.” Nathan flinches slightly at the present tense. “Even if he didn’t,” she amends. “I’m not losing my mind yet, Nathan, so don’t look at me like that. If you go ahead with this prosecution, the family will never survive.”

“I’m not,” he says quietly. He can find out later if Peter let it slip, or if there is another mole somewhere. His mother isn’t likely to tell him who her spies are. “Before, if Dad went down, it would separate us in the eyes of the voters—of the public. Now, harming his name just harms me. There’s going to be a subpoena to search Dad’s office.”

She rolls her eyes at Nathan’s self-centered summary of the situation, but doesn’t argue about it. “What about attorney-client privilege?”

“Doesn’t apply in every circumstance. I need to make sure they won’t find anything.”

This is the step he never wanted to take. He’s skated the line before, pretending not to know things that might help prosecute other cases, but never to this extent. He’ll have to leave the D.A.’s office, before he is accused of blowing the case.

Mrs. Petrelli purses her lips. “Very well. And you’ll tell Peter?”

Nathan nods. Peter was expecting to testify today, to make a public demonstration of his loyalty to Nathan above the rest of their family. It’s frightening, the lengths that Peter will go to for him and Nathan is glad, at least, that their father’s death spared Peter that.

He drives to Peter’s apartment on the Lower East Side, down FDR Drive, almost blinded by the sunlight sparking off the East River. Peter looks polished and eager in his court suit, the one that Nathan helped pick out for him. He tells Peter the deposition, probably even the case, is off.

“Be thankful he never knew that his sons were going to stab him in the back,” says Nathan. He doesn’t feel sorry for what he asked Peter to do, but he wants to see if Peter does.

Peter looks at him sharply. “It doesn’t matter now, does it?” asks Peter. He looks at Nathan’s shoes for a moment then back up into his eyes, and puts his hand on Nathan’s shoulder, without saying anything. Nathan doesn’t move—he’s been backing away from his brother’s comfort since Heidi in the hospital, but every time it gets harder.

“No, not anymore,” says Nathan, finally.

Peter shrugs and walks into the apartment, leaving the door open for Nathan to follow. He starts tugging off his tie and unbuttoning his shirt. “Guess I won’t need this,” he says under his breath. “When’s the funeral?”

“Not for a few days.”

“Can you take me to Mom?” asks Peter. “Or should I take the train?”

Peter stays by their mother’s side for the next few days, while Nathan makes all the funeral arrangements. He stands next to her at the funeral. They receive well-wishers, Peter positioned behind his mother’s chair, and Peter’s presence allows Mrs. Petrelli to sit there, with a slight, sad smile on her face, and say as little as possible. Nathan hears Peter answering questions about the heart attack, accepting condolences with grace.

Congressman Neild approaches Nathan at his father’s funeral. “I’m sorry about your father,” says Neild. He shakes Nathan’s hand with a politician’s handshake, a firm grasp, and another hand around Nathan’s arm, but Neild makes it feel natural, not forced.

Nathan closes his eyes and bows his head slightly in acknowledgement. He’s been doing that a lot lately, so much so that the gesture feels rehearsed.

“And Heidi,” asks Congressman Neild, “how is she doing?”

“She’ll be coming home soon.” Calm, soft voice—he can do this, mouth these words until they don’t mean anything.

“I know this is a hard time for you,” says Neild, and Nathan braces himself for more sympathy. “But I have to tell you this now. I was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.”

Nathan starts to launch into the usual questions: how are you? Can’t they do something? Can I do anything? But Neild is clearly as tired of the platitudes of loss as Nathan is and he holds up his hand for silence.

“I want you to take over my campaign,” says Neild. “You’ll have my full support when you announce, you can keep any of my staff who wants to stay, or recruit your own, but I don’t recommend it.”

Nathan stands still, stunned for a moment. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Say you’ll do it. It’s your best chance—you can skip over State Assembly and go straight into the Majors. And you won’t be running against an incumbent. The party has already been running polls—you’ve got the best chance of anyone to keep the seat.” He closes his eyes a moment too long, and Nathan notices how gray his skin looks, but Neild seems to shake it off. “Think about it, Nathan,” he says, taking Nathan’s hand again, “But don’t take too long. It’s only a hundred and eight-six days until the election.”

It doesn’t take long to decide. The timing is terrible, but Nathan knows he will never get to the White House by missing opportunities like this. A chance like this comes once in a lifetime, if ever.

Nathan is the executor of the will, and convenes Peter and their mother a few days later to read it. He unseals the envelope and reads it over a few times to himself before flipping it toward his mother.

“A trust fund,” he says. His voice has gone tight and monotone, and he sees both Peter and his mother's eyes flick up toward him. He clenches his teeth and reminds himself to watch his tone. Soon everything he does is going to be scrutinized even more than before, and the voters won’t like him cold and angry.

“You’re supposed to read it, Nathan,” says Mrs. Petrelli, with a chill in her voice.

“You know what it says, don’t you, Mom?” asks Nathan, but he reads it anyway, listing the various Petrelli properties, portfolios, boats, horses, a failing wine bar, all of which his mother will control.

Nearly forty, he thinks, and his money is to be held in trust until his mother dies. This is probably how matricides happen.

Peter picks up his mother's hand, from where she rests it on the mahogany desk. “I'm sure you'll manage it well, Mom,” he says, with a dark look at Nathan.

And of course, Peter’s going to take her side, at least while she's in the room. Not because Peter has any opinion about the injustice of it, but just because she’s the one who needs comforting right now. Mrs. Petrelli dabs a few tears away from her eyes, without, Nathan notes, smearing any of that carefully applied makeup.

“Thank you,” says Mrs. Petrelli coolly to Nathan, once he finishes reading. “Peter, can you please walk me out to my car. Nathan, call me tomorrow and we can discuss the implications.”

Peter comes back in a few minutes later. His hair has started to fall forward from where he slicked it back for this meeting—he's had to do that a lot lately--funerals, court appearances, and now the reading of the will. It's strange seeing him act like an adult so often.

“Now I'm going to have to beg her for every scrap—,” says Nathan, venomously.

“She said she would give you whatever you need for your campaign,” says Peter, cutting off Nathan’s diatribe.

“She said that.”

“Yes. She loves you too, Nathan.”

Nathan looks up at the ceiling—it’s wood paneled like the rest of their father’s study, and not to Nathan’s taste at all. “Right. Well. She probably arranged for Nield to get cancer, too,” he says with a laugh.

Peter makes a face. “Sure she did.”

“You don't know her like I do,” says Nathan.

Peter turns away, and Nathan reaches out, to turn Peter's face back toward him. “Yeah,” says Peter, “you know all the family secrets, you were born first, you get everything.”

“You get a trust fund, too.”

Peter turns his face away from Nathan’s hand sharply, but then sighs and puts his hand on Nathan's shoulder. “It was never about the money.”

It’s always been about the money, thinks Nathan, but that's the kind of sentiment Peter can't understand, _won't_ understand. Instead Nathan turns to get his keys. “Heidi is coming home today,” he says, quietly. “You want to come with me to pick her up?”

She’'s in the nicest room at Westchester General, and becoming itchy and irritable from morphine withdrawal, but she smiles when she sees Peter. Peter kisses her on the forehead, and he and Nathan help her into her wheelchair. Peter sits in the back seat of the car with her, and they both help her into bed back at the house.

“She's on Vicodin now, but the pain from surgery should be easing soon, and she could become addicted to that,” Peter tells Nathan as they walk back downstairs and out to the patio.

Nathan goes to the sideboard in a weatherproof cabinet under the eaves of the house and pours himself a scotch on the rocks. “We’ll have a nurse to take care of it,” he says, knowing it sounds callous.

Peter makes an expression Nathan can’t read, taking offense at that, perhaps, the way Nathan lumps the nurse in with the other hired help? Well, he shouldn’t be sensitive about his profession. Peter will be the most expensively reared help his patients have ever had, but help all the same.

“You’ll have to be there for her, too,” Peter says, glaring. Nathan can never decide if Peter thinks too much of him or too little, although, right now he's leaning toward too little.

“I will, Pete,” says Nathan, wearily. He leans back against the stone wall of the house.

“Hey, Nathan, you okay?” Peter asks, suddenly all concern. He puts his hand on Nathan’s upper arm, and squeezes it gently.

Nathan wants to take whatever comfort Peter is offering, just to touch someone who doesn't want anything from him except his happiness. But that's not how it works--Peter comes to _him_ for comfort of a sort, a harsh kind of comfort. He needs Nathan to be strong for him when he comes to lick his wounds from all his disappointments. Instead of taking what is offered, Nathan stretches his lips in what feels more like a grimace than a smile. “I'll be fine,” he says, tightly.

They order pizza and eat out on the patio while the sun sets. Nathan doesn’t feel very talkative and Peter stays quiet also. It’s too much: Heidi’s accident, his dad’s death, and now, the campaign. He’ll have to put his grieving, his family, even Peter, on hold while he campaigns, and only a perfect campaign, with no mistakes or scandals will allow a win. Maybe he should have waited, handled the public fallout from his father, from Heidi, for a while first.

“You think you made the right choice?” asks Peter, suddenly, echoing Nathan’s thoughts.

Nathan is used to Peter’s ability to guess what he’s thinking, but it’s still uncomfortably like having a conscience around, one who can walk and talk and give him attitude. “Yes,” says Nathan. He doesn’t want to elaborate. “Yes, I did.”

“Why do you want this so much, Nathan?” Peter asks.

“I have people working on an answer to that,” says Nathan, with a short bark of a laugh. If only he could refer all of Peter’s questions to his staff.

“What’s the real answer?”

What can he tell Peter, that Peter will want to hear? The idealistic reasons, the ones that sound silly, even in his head: that he’s seen what men like Linderman can do, even within the law, and he wants to close some of those loopholes, that he’s seen what bad policies can do, both in the military and the D.A.’s office, and he wants to help. Or the selfish reasons, the ones that sound too venal: that he’s never stood on one rung of a ladder without reaching for the next, that the sky is the only limit on his ambition, that he likes power, pure and simple.

“I want to be the first president whose name ends in a vowel,” he says finally, with a grin. It feels strange—the first real smile on his face since Peter’s party.

Peter laughs, and rolls his eyes. “I guess I’ll wait for the press conference.”

Peter stays the night in the guest room. Heidi doesn’t even move when Nathan gets into bed, and he tosses and turns for an hour, hating the stillness, and her too-slow breathing, so he gets up and walks barefoot around the halls. The boys are away for now, with an aunt until Heidi is ready to see them, and the house is perfectly silent.

“I know you're out there,” says Peter through the door of the guest room when Nathan paces by, and Nathan has no idea how he knows. The carpet absorbs all the sound. “Come in.”

Nathan pushes open the door, walks over and sits on Peter's bed. “Can't sleep?” asks Peter.

“Excellent diagnosis, they teach you that in nursing school?”

Peter rolls his eyes. “You have to be a jerk, all the time, huh?” he says softly. He reaches out to touch Nathan's face.

Nathan flinches away. Of all the things he’ll have to hide during the coming election, this is the thing that must be buried the deepest.

“No,” he says, and they both know what he means.

“You can’t carry it all yourself,” says Peter. Nathan wonders why Peter doesn’t remind him that he’s the one pacing in front of Peter’s door. Maybe it’s too obvious.

“Who else is going to?” asks Nathan. Peter doesn’t say anything, just lets the silence stretch out between them. “I thought with Dad gone, he couldn’t make anymore trouble,” says Nathan. “Stupid, I know.

“Tell Neild you won’t do it,” says Peter. He reaches out again, and Nathan doesn’t stop him from putting his hand on Nathan’s bare shoulder. They can’t talk without touching—it doesn’t even seem like talking if they can’t communicate this way, too.

“This is my chance.” Nathan bows his head. “If I don’t take this opportunity . . .”

Peter’s fingers find the knots in his neck, and smooth them out, and Nathan leans back against him. This isn't how it works, for them. It's not consoling, it's not tender, it's not anything Nathan wants to think about in the cold light of day, or even the golden light from the bedside lamp.

“I should go,” says Nathan, barely above a whisper. Maybe if he followed saying he should go with actually going, this wouldn’t keep happening, and he never knows when the shift happens, when Peter’s hands turn from comforting into something else, never knows until they are miles away from that line, too far to go back over it.

“Whatever you need,” says Peter. “You don't have to carry everything alone.” He smiles to himself, a gentle smile, but with a hint of mischief. “At least let me handle Mom.”

“Okay,” says Nathan. He wants to tell Peter then, all of it, their father’s suicide attempts, and the hand that their mother keeps on the family businesses, strong and invisible: all the things he’s been hiding. And more, how he doesn’t know if he can carry this, the weight of being the Petrelli patriarch now. What would Peter think, then, of all the lies?

They don’t usually kiss—and what can he call usual for a handful of times, blunders like that?—but now his lips on Peter’s is how Nathan stops himself from speaking. Peter kisses him eagerly back, always too willing to give everything he can. They tumble together on the bed, bare skin on bare skin, lights on, eyes open, face to face.

“You really want this?” Nathan asks, something he never asked before. Talking would have made it too real.

Peter looks away. “Yes,” he says, with no further explanation. He tugs down his pajama pants and then Nathan’s. Peter takes Nathan’s fingers in his mouth, slicking them with saliva, and then waits for Nathan to decide, not that Nathan has a choice, at this point. And why stop now?

Now Peter turns off the light, to make it easier. Peter always knows what Nathan needs, more than Nathan does himself. Nathan spits onto his fingers again, and presses them into Peter, listens for Peter’s intake of breath and then the more relaxed breathing that will tell him Peter’s ready. He never meant to get so . . . practiced at this, but he can’t think of that now, instead he enters Peter, slowly, until he’s all the way in.

Now he wishes Peter had left the light on. If this is how it’s going to be, then he wants to see Peter’s beautiful brown eyes, the curve of his mouth when Nathan’s fucking him, so he reaches over and turns it back on. Peter looks just how he imagined, lips parted, eyes glazed, wanton.

It’s almost too much to see him there, so Nathan doesn’t even move, just watches Peter stroking himself until he’s almost ready, and then Nathan starts to rock himself back and forth. Peter comes and then wraps his legs around Nathan’s waist, pulling him in hard, and he comes as well.

All the other times Nathan can call accidents, mistakes, but not this, when he brushes Peter’s sweaty hair off his forehead, when he lets Peter curl around him after, protective as Nathan never allows Peter to be.

Nathan wakes up in the cool blue light before dawn, and disentangles himself from the sheets and Peter's limbs.

He goes to his study and spends a few hours sorting through his father’s papers. A cab comes and picks Peter up, and from his window Nathan sees Peter wave up at him. At nine o’clock he calls his mother.

“I'm calling, just like I promised,” he says when she picks up.

“You don't have to make it sound like a chore. What do you need?”

“Heidi came home from the hospital today.”

“Oh?” said Mrs. Petrelli. “I hope you’re getting some help. You can't take care of her, and I don't want you roping Peter into it either.”

“I won't.”

“Good. Because he's never going to give up this nurse thing if he gets to hang around your house all the time.”

“It's not his specialty.”

“Yes, of course. I like this hospice thing. He'll burn out quickly, and realize what's really important.”

Nathan rubs the bridge of his nose. He might not understand Peter, not really, but for all that his mother dotes on Peter, she _really_ has no clue. “Whatever you say.”

“So, you'll get someone?”

“Should I send you the bill, Mom?” asks Nathan.

“Yes, I suppose you should. You can send me all the bills from now on.”


End file.
